Fort Wayne man sentenced to 10 years in federal drug case

Lisa Esquivel Long

lesquivel@news-sentinel.com

A Fort Wayne man who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute cocaine was sentenced to 120 months in prison by a federal judge.

Marco A. Garcia, 31, was sentenced before Chief Judge Theresa L. Springmann of U.S. District Court, Northern District of Indiana, according to a news release Monday from U.S. Attorney Thomas L. Kirsch II. Garcia was also sentenced to 5 years of supervised release.

According to documents in this case, from January 2015 to July 2016 Garcia was part of a conspiracy to distribute cocaine, according to the release. Then-U.S. Attorney David A. Capp announced in August 2016 that Garcia was one of 18 people involved in a large-scale drug distribution network to move cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin among Fort Wayne, Elkhart and South Bend. The ring dealt “kilogram quantities” that also stretched into northwest Ohio and southern Michigan, Capp previously said. About $600,000, hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of illegal drugs and 13 vehicles, including a Bentley and a Corvette, were confiscated as the result of 20 federal search warrants served in Fort Wayne, Elkhart and South Bend.

This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Safe Streets and Gang Task Force, whose members include the FBI, the Indiana State Police, the Allen County Sherriff’s Department, and the Fort Wayne Police Department, with assistance from the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Internal Revenue Service and the Allen County Drug Task Force. This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Anthony W. Geller and Stacey Speith.